Although, people come from different backgrounds and have different lives, they may share common interests. People also make all kinds of different choices in life, and these choices people make may have similar outcomes to other people. In the novel “Quicksand,” Helga Crane’s self-image is unstable, because she is African-American and White. This instability in her life leads her to make decisions impulsively and not consider the repercussions of her choices. Helga makes a few major choices in her life which includes where to move, the type of job she has, and whom she is going to marry. The consequences of the decisions, is Helga ends up alone in life. In the story of “The Ballad of the Sad Café,” Ms. Amelia has a stable self-image and is confident. Ms. Amelia is different from Helga because she does not leave her home and move to different places looking for happiness. However, she is similar to Helga, because she falls in love and becomes like a prisoner in her own house. Helga Crane and Ms. Amelia live differently and make different choices, however they are similar, because they both share loneliness and isolation from their choice to fall in love.
Helga Crane makes her choices based on two factors, her identity and money. These two factors cause her to make irrational decisions. In turn these irrational and decisions cause her isolation and loneliness in life. Helga who is African-American and White, views herself negatively, because of her race. She also feels alone and different from other people, because she is multiracial. Helga tries to make up for the negative aspects of her life, by making impulsive decisions, in regards to, where to live, work, and whom to marry. The feelings of isolation and loneliness, is the r...
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... love. Even though, they come from different backgrounds and make dissimilar choices in their life. Helga and Miss Amelia are similar, because they become like prisoners in their own house. Helga is unhappy, because she is multiracial. She tries to make her own happiness by moving to different places. She surrounds herself with different friends but this does not make her happy. Helga hopes marrying a preacher and having children, this will make her happy. However, this does not make her happy, it only causes her depression. Miss Amelia does not surround herself with people for pleasure but instead for work purposes. When she tries to love again, this causes her to never leave the safety of her house. People may come from different backgrounds and live different lives. In the end, people are more alike because the choices they make in life may have the same ending.
Two people could be living two very different lifestyles, yet they could be very similar in the way they act and react in the same situation. Charlotte from “The Metaphor” by Budge Wilson and the Mother character from “Borders” by Thomas King live very different lives but the way they deal with the problems they are faced with is very similar. Both protagonists have to deal with trying to be forced to be something they are not by society and their families, but Charlotte from “The Metaphor” has been challenged by her strenuous home, she must face her organized mother and orderly home; the Mother from “Borders” must stand up for what she believes in and fight for what she wants.
Her realization that she is not alone in her oppression brings her a sense of freedom. It validates her emerging thoughts of wanting to rise up and shine a light on injustice. Her worries about not wanting to grow up because of the harsh life that awaits her is a common thought among others besides the people in her community. As she makes friends with other Indians in other communities she realizes the common bonds they share, even down to the most basic such as what they eat, which comforts her and allows her to empathize with them.
Helga Crane put up racial barriers physiologically to protect herself from discrimination and conformity. Crane grew up without a place in the status quo which forced her to blend with wherever she was accepted. Her influences during childhood had a huge impact on her and the way she felt she should be treated, but as she grows older she begins to experience the wrath of racism. Crane experiences her life through the eyes of other people, particularly white people. She allows this factor to control her life and determine what she is capable...
The first encounter with Helga Crane, Nella Larsen’s protagonist in the novel Quicksand, introduces the heroine unwinding after a day of work in a dimly lit room. She is alone. And while no one else is present in the room, Helga is accompanied by her own thoughts, feelings, and her worrisome perceptions of the world around her. Throughout the novel, it becomes clear that most of Helga’s concerns revolve around two issues- race and sex. Even though there are many human character antagonists that play a significant role in the novel and in the story of Helga Crane, such as her friends, coworkers, relatives, and ultimately even her own children, her race and her sexuality become Helga’s biggest challenges. These two taxing antagonists appear throughout the novel in many subtle forms. It becomes obvious that racial confusion and sexual repression are a substantial source of Helga’s apprehensions and eventually lead to her tragic demise.
For example Kate and Kat were similar as their both independent and intelligent individuals who go by their own morals and don't care what anyone else thinks of them. Bianca in both texts is seen as the object of desire' as of her submissive manner and good looks. I used similarities like these ones all throughout 10 things' with only making minor changes.
There certainly was a divide between the two races, but now it was more of a passive aggressive approach. Biracial coupling and children were especially uncommon in this time, therefore society didn’t know how to react to it. Since it was so uncommon, society decided that if you weren’t a part of the norm, you wouldn’t be treated that way. The normal was to be of one race and to grow up, live, and die within the community of that race. Helga being from a mixed background did not fit it or conform to society’s norm in “Quicksand”. In Helga’s perfect world she would like to live in a community of both white and black people, and eventually hope that in the new generation would be a breed of mixed children like herself. Unfortunately this was not the society Helga was born into, therefore she could never find a true place to call home. She would move back and forth between both races. When she lives among blacks, she longs to experience the white side of her soul, but when she lives among whites, she misses being around black people. For this reason, Helga is always tempted to leave her current residence to go someplace else. Eventually Helga begins to give in to society out of exhaustion from trying to reject and break its rules. Larsen reveals this by writing “And after a little while she gave herself up wholly to the fascinating business of being seen, gaped at, desired.” Larsen is telling us how Helga gives in to society, even if it is in a seemingly positive light, she is depicting for us, her surrender to society and it’s rules. Once she realizes that she is giving in, she does all she can to try and escape doing that again. Although she tries to escape society’s claws and find herself a home, she discovers it is a lot more difficult that it was when she was
Along with each character’s similar attributes, the relationships they both have with their husbands are comparable. Zeena Frome and Elizabeth proctor share many characteristics and relationships through each story, showing how similar each works of literature are alike. Over the two stories previously mentioned there are many similarities and are strongly comparable through each character, which can be found looking at various pieces of
Ultimately, these underlying antagonists prove to be too much for Helga Crane to endure. It seems that the more she struggles to be free, the more she sinks herself deeper into the quicksand.
Hedda Gabler is a text in which a very domineering society drives a woman to her suicidal death. Many argue that Hedda’s death is an act of courage, as rebellion against the rules of the society, however other believe that Hedda’s actions show cowardice, as she is unable to cope with the harsh reality of the her situation. Hedda's singular goal throughout the play has been to prove that she is still in possession of free will. Hedda shows many examples of both courage and cowardice throughout the play, differing to the character she is with.
The Ballad Of The Sad Cafe Throughout the novel The Ballad Of The Sad Cafe by Carson McCullers, there is an evident recurring theme of the past. Ever present in the story is a feeling of unrequited love. illustrated through looking at the parallels of the intertwined relationships between three separate individuals. Miss Amelia Evans, Cousin Lymon Willis, and Marvin Macy, are the players involved in this grotesque love triangle. The feelings they have for each other are what drives the story, and are significant enough that the prosperity of the entire town hinges upon them.
In Carson McCullers’ “The Ballad of the Sad Cafe”, the ending coda shows the work of the Forks Falls chain gang. The chain gang is made up of “twelve mortal men, seven of them black and five of them white boys from this county” (458)1. The song starts when “One dark voice will start a phrase, half-sung, and like a question. And after a moment another voice will join in, soon the whole gang will be singing […] the music intricately blended [...] the music will swell [...] Then slowly the music will sink down until at last there remains one lonely voice”(458). The song of the chain gang correlates the life of the town and Miss Amelia as they change, but eventually goes back into what they were in the beginning.2
In Nella Larsen's Quicksand, Helga Crane passively opts out of situations; her actions are consistently reactionary. Helga’s anxiety is the figurative “quicksand” in which she sinks throughout the novel: Helga is too afraid to commit to a decision and thus flees geographically, failing to realize she can not find happiness through avoiding decisions.
Most women in Mrs Mallard’s situation were expected to be upset at the news of her husbands death, and they would worry more about her heart trouble, since the news could worsen her condition. However, her reaction is very different. At first she gets emotional and cries in front of her sister and her husbands friend, Richard. A little after, Mrs. Mallard finally sees an opportunity of freedom from her husbands death. She is crying in her bedroom, but then she starts to think of the freedom that she now has in her hands. “When she abandoned herse...
The Ballad of the Sad Café, by Carson McCullers, begins with the description of a very lonely and isolated town and most of the story is told in a flashback that explains how Miss Amelia came to her present situation. McCullers describes the town as dreary, miserable, isolated and lonely. “Otherwise the town is lonesome, sad, and like a place that is far off and estranged from all the other places in the world.”(McCullers, Carson 2001) and the story is also centered on the love triangle between Marvin Macy, Miss Amelia and cousin Lymon. The first event in this love triangle, was the 10 day marriage of Marvin Macy and Miss Amelia. Prior to developing an interest in Miss Amelia, Marvin Macy was well-known as a Casanova or a womanizer and the town’s criminal, when he met Miss Amelia and he realized he had these romantic feelings for her and it made Macy want to be a better man. He cleaned up his act, and he devoted his entire attention to Amelia. Miss Amelia on the other hand felt no connection with him, and entered the relationship to solely have an economic advantage. When this became clear to him, when he finally removed the illusion from himself that his love was returned, it was too late. Miss Amelia had taken everything he owned. Marvin Macy sought a haven in his criminal activity, and once again was sent to prison. His love was not returned and for that he suffered greatly. Then many years later, a man named Lymon Willis came into Miss Amelia's life. He presented himself as Miss Amelia’s distant cousin. He was a deformed hunchback, but this did not stop Amelia from falling in love with him. This love changed her, it softened her manish exterior and she felt like a woman again. She catered to his every need, gave him everything...
Despite the authors writing the stories decades apart, there are striking similarities between the protagonists. Defying the societal standard of the time, they rebelled against their marriages and strove for any feeling